A new North/South partnership is making waves in the Arctic — sound waves. Facebook carried this message from Frobisher Bay on September 19:
Praise God — the first equipment check and test broadcast of 98.3 CIJC-FM Anglican Church Radio in Iqaluit happened today! Services, gospel music, prayers, readings, and testimonies are now able to be broadcast in Inuktitut to Iqaluit, Apex, and those on the land in the park and along the bay … and eventually to be streaming online for other communities to share!
Thank you to Revs. Abraham and Samantha Kublu and Ann Martha Keenainak who spent the day with Archdeacon Pryor to install equipment, set up antennas, and test the gear. And thank you to St. Paul’s Bloor Street for investing in this project that will be a big blessing for years to come!
Hearts were leaping for joy, driving around town and hearing Inuktitut gospel music and readings from the Inuktitut audio Bible, coming through crystal clear!
The new radio station on Baffin Island will broadcast the three Sunday services (two in Inuktitut, one in English) from St Jude’s Cathedral in Iqaluit, the capital of the territory of Nunavut and its largest city, with a population of 7,429.
When the Rev. Ann Martha Keenainak heard the first broadcast, she was “awestruck with what God is doing.” The next Sunday, more people attended both the English and Inuktitut morning and evening services.
“Honestly, it goes to show God has no limits,” Keenainak said. “No one can stop him from showing love. If this is his way to reach others in the Arctic, we are blessed that we can be at the beginning of what we didn’t see coming, partaking of this radio starting.”
The station will also broadcast Morning Prayer and hymns each morning, prayers and Inuktitut gospel music at lunch time, and Evening Prayer and hymns each evening. The content will be live from the cathedral, or will feature songs recorded in worship services. When a local minister or lay reader isn’t available to lead the services, recorded portions of the services from the Inuktitut Book of Common Prayer will be broadcast.
Inuktitut is spoken not only in Nunavut, where it is one of the official languages of the territory, but also in all the coastal communities along the Arctic Ocean, including Yukon, Quebec, the northern regions of Newfoundland and Labrador, and the northeastern coast of Manitoba on Hudson’s Bay.
The 2016 Canadian census reports that 70,540 individuals identify themselves as Inuit, of whom 37,570 call Inuktitut their mother tongue.
The radio project was initiated by the Rev. Chris Dow, former dean of the cathedral. He was inspired by Keenainak’s story about using the community radio station for ministry in Pangnirtung on Cumberland Sound.
Dow raised the project in a casual conversation at a conference with Bishop Jenny Andison, rector of St. Paul’s Bloor Street in Toronto, the Anglican Church of Canada’s largest parish. Andison remembered that St. Paul’s had an old restricted fund whose proceeds were to be used for the proclamation of the gospel among the Inuit. Those funds provided for the regulatory applications, transmitter, antenna, and the audio and computer equipment required to set up the broadcast.
“The cathedral had a history of playing gospel music over roof-mounted loudspeakers, something not always appreciated by the neighbors,” said Alex Pryor, executive archdeacon. “These noon-hour hymns from the church will move to the radio waves, so they can continue to encourage all those who are in Iqaluit, especially the elders, and those in the hospital or waiting at the medical boarding house for a flight to their home community.”
Pryor explained that it’s not a “radio station” in the usual sense: “It is not licensed to function as a community radio station or to have ‘hosts’ or radio shows of any sort. It’s a 50-watt transmitter, the maximum permitted under the exemption, which initial testing shows covers well into Sylvia Grinnell Territorial Park and over the hill to the community of Apex. Because radio signals skip off the atmosphere, it so happens that the signal has been picked up in Pangnirtung [near the Arctic Circle] as well.”
Nor will it prove expensive to run. “The equipment takes about the same power as a mini-fridge, and is on a timer to power off overnight,” Pryor said.
Most of the technical aspects of the broadcast certificate application were handled by a consultant in Quebec who specializes in low-wattage radio. The clergy of St. Jude’s — the Rev. Abraham Kublu and his wife, the Rev. Samantha Kublu, and Keenainak — handled the installation of the antenna and initial testing with Pryor, who had flown in from Yellowknife on other diocesan business. The four spent a day drilling holes in walls for cables, and fitted and installed the antenna outside the cathedral.
“That’s part of the beauty of parish ministry in the Arctic,” Pryor said. “We get to get our hands dirty and do what needs to be done to proclaim the gospel to our communities.”
For ten years, Abraham Kublu had been recording his local community singing Inuktitut worship songs or hymns. Now he is pleased that their music will be transmitted to a wider audience. Samantha Kublu hopes the station will “help more people find Jesus Christ as their Savior.”
FM radio is an important way of communicating in communities across the North, in part because the technology is straightforward. Radio is also very important for the preservation of the Inuktitut language and its regional dialects. With so much English content streaming in over Starlink, SpaceX’s high-speed internet service, local community radio stations provide a reliable and accessible way for communities to produce and preserve their content.
In many Arctic communities, FM radio became the go-to for churches during lengthy COVID lockdowns. It was the default option in many communities for ministers to deliver their sermons over the local radio station since, even a few years ago, the internet capacity wasn’t there for online streaming.
Many Arctic communities have local licensed community radio stations that broadcast around the clock. Iqaluit, being the capital of Nunavut, is different, having a number of commercial radio stations with more than enough programming without asking clergy to preach on the air. Pryor says that taking advantage of the Canadian broadcast licensing exemption for local low-power religious broadcasts fills this gap, and has already been a great encouragement to those in Iqaluit.
“There’s also interest from other communities who don’t already have a community radio station that broadcasts their church services to set up similar stations to benefit their communities,” Pryor said. “We’ve tested 50 watts to be received loud and clear over three miles in each direction, which includes the entirety of the city of Iqaluit and the community of Apex.”
By comparison, commercial radio stations in the South are often 50,000 to 100,000 watts and may serve a radius of about 50 miles in each direction.
“Unlike in the South, where there are rural people living in little villages and farms along highways and country roads, there would be no advantage to higher power, since communities in the North are very isolated,” Pryor said. “There are no roads to or from Iqaluit, and the next community [Kingnait, population 1,300] is 75 miles away across the mountains, so even at very high power and very great expense, the signal would be unlikely to reach reliably.”
The next step will be the creation of a 24/7 online stream of Inuktitut-language programming, to continue online outside of the hours permitted for FM broadcasting, and accessible to Inuit anywhere with an internet connection. It will keep the same basic format of morning, evening, and noonday prayers, plus a regular schedule of Inuktitut Christian music in between, and the playback of sermons and even discipleship or catechetical programming from across the North.
“In time, my hope is that the Diocese of the Arctic will apply for a full (24/7) community radio broadcast license for that stream, and then each community that was interested would only need to apply for a license for a low-wattage local transmitter and could rebroadcast that signal with very little effort or ongoing cost on their part,” Pryor said.
When asked how the station would extend her ministry, Keenainak said, “We have no intention for our own ministry, but his. We only have had a small part in it, but Our Father’s ripple effect is far greater. How and who he reaches goes way farther out than our own, far beyond our capacity.”
